Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the challenge of postmodernism

AT this time in our history and the trajectory which various forces are pulling and shaping our nation; lucidity and clarity of thoughts are required to be brought on the factors that we believe are necessary to turn the fortunes of this nation around. Making sense of the complex occurrences and events concurrently pervading our land has become very crucial for the survival and progress of our nation. It is also important that within the context of the massive, extended and deepening cleavages creating newer challenges and exacerbating the various divides within the nation that the need to search for urgent but workable solutions to exit our nation from the developmental morass which it has found itself. Time to reasonably and objectively confront these hydra-headed challenges confronting our nation is now and it can only be done by men and women who would not allow the emotive forces of primordiality distort their understanding of the issues and the proffered solution choices. Leadership and leadership recruitment processes remain the key to driving the nation out of underdevelopment. Many other nations of the world do have natural disasters and other negative natural occurrences as major obstacles to national development but what we have in Nigeria is the leadership conundrum. This has had a vice like stranglehold upon our nation suppressing its potentials and holding down most of its levers from achieving the critical mass needed to kick start national development.

Our major inability as a nation and as a people to throw off these shackles can only be explained by the fact that we have not been very objective in allowing our leadership recruitment process the transparency that it needs to produce leaders that are selfless and with the necessary patriotic zeal to lead our nation to achieve its full potential. We have allowed our emotions driven by ethnicity, religion and clannishness to drive our processes which eventually have all continued producing less than optimal outcomes for our nation. The development of our nation is therefore a function of the nature and character of its prevailing leadership. Once we are able to get the leadership question and its various processes right, we would largely be in position as a nation to make progress. How can we get it right when almost all of the time, we have kept on throwing up our second eleven instead of producing our best to lead us? How can we peoduce our best when we allow primordial sentiments to drive our choices of leadership so, we kept on putting men and women who do not possess the right capacities and capabilities to lead us out of the woods?

In Bola Tinubu, Nigeria has fortunately found a man with the qualities of a great leader who has continuously demonstrated both in words and indeed that he will be the man to deliver this nation from the clutches of backwardness and poverty. A man who has remained unwavering in protecting the interest of the downtrodden and the working masses of this nation is exactly what we need going into 2023. A man who turned Lagos from being a slum to becoming the renewed and great city which it has become today cannot but be a great leader. We believe he can replicate this at the national level and this has amply shown by leading the charge that saw the exit of the dinosaur – PDP from the seat of power at the national level.

When you understand some of the fundamental attributes of a great leader which we have mentioned, you cannot but be propelled into a discussion of the leadership enigma which the Asiwaju – Bola Ahmed Tinubu has come to represent within the nation’s polity. We have written so much about this personality and are not tired of writing about him because he keeps metamorphosing and consolidating his ideas and basic life philosophies generating new and exciting positions continuously that have not only kept the polity re-inventing itself but creating solutions proactively to interrogate governance issues within the nation’s socio-economic framework. It is important that at this critical juncture in our quest for national development that we enthrone frameworks that would allow us to put our best foot forward by fielding our first eleven especially as we seek to solve our leadership question at the national level. Tinubu remains to our minds the best possible choice available to us a nation given his qualities as a unifier and a deep networker who is willing at all time to let the nation win instead of pursuing personal goals. Bola Ahmed Tinubu stands out amongst the pack to the extent that if the nation fails to have him as a leader in 2023, we would have suffered a great loss but having him is a great gain for our nation and will assuredly set this nation on the path for national development.

Time without number, he has shown clearly that he is willing to spend and be spent for the cause of this nation. He has also demonstrated that he is not just a bridge builder but a bridge. He is always willing to lay himself on the line for others to use him as a stepping stone to their successes never – minding the insinuations that he is a weakling that can be shoved aside easily. In him, we see those qualities that are necessary for building nations especially the ones at crossroads like ours. 2023 beckons! Bola Ahmed Tinubu is our best foot forward. Let us put it! Allowing the puerile and self-serving argument of turn by turn politics at this time will take us further backwards! May we make the right choice for 2023 and may we allow the best to come forward! It is time to stop the step backwards. Nigeria must make progress! The North is comfortable with him, The West is in bed with him. The South-South honours him while the East partners with him. A man that is comfortable working with the entire geo-political zones in the country cannot but be the best thing that happens to us at this time when mutual suspicion and distrusts amongst the ethnic nationalities have become deepened. We need him to heal our wounds and heal our nation. We can do it and he will deliver!

• Honourable Jimoh represents Apapa Constituency II at the Lagos State House of Assembly.

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